Partnering opportunity

Established Slovak research institute has developed an exceptional nanomaterial with unique photofunctionality applicable e.g. in photochemistry. The institute is looking for investors or companies interested in manufacturing of the nanomaterial

Contents

Summary

Slovak institute has developed an exceptional nanomaterial with unique photofunctionality. Hybrid inorganic-organic supramolecular systems composed of photoactive luminescent dye molecules embedded in a layered structure of nanomaterials exhibit attractive features, such as emission, absorption and nonlinear optical properties. The institute is looking for partners to cooperate with via financial agreement, manufacturing agreement or via services agreement.

Partner sought

Type: no preference
Field of activity: partner interested in inorganic chemistry, nanomaterials, their production, research and their usage
Role of partner:
Financial agreement - the financing for the further development of this technology is sought.
Manufacturing agreement - the research has developmed this innovative technology and are looking for a partner to manufacture and commercialize it.
Services agreement - the institute is offering a specific technological services connected to this technology and also connected to inorganic chemistry research capacities of the institute.

Description

Above-mentioned research institute is one of the most respected and experienced research centres in Slovakia active in the field of inorganic chemistry research focused on basic research and education of new scientists.
Nanocomposite materials based on organic dye molecules are interesting in terms of their potential applications in photochemistry. The idea of the technology proposal is to prepare the nanocomposite materials containing inorganic layered materials, surfactant molecules and organic dyes with unique photochemical and photophysical properties. These types of composites are considered to be an attractive alternative to pure organic materials because of their potentially superior thermal, optical and mechanical stability. The adsorption and orientation of organic species on solid surfaces is influenced by the interaction between the inorganic surface and adsorbed organic species, as well as by the intermolecular interactions among adsorbed specimens. One of the most promising candidates in a role of inorganic matrix in these systems is represented by layered alumina-silicates, especially clay minerals from a smectite group. These minerals represent very attractive, economically affordable and widely studied materials in a field of nanomaterials research.
Much attraction is given to the possibilities of fundamental changes of the intrinsic molecular properties, which should lead to nanocomposite materials possessing excellent photochemical behaviour. Indeed, the organic part of these hybrid systems could improve physico-chemical properties of the inorganic matrix, such as hydrophobicity, density and mechanical resistance. Therefore, different organic dyes from group of rhodamine, cyanine and porphyrin dyes will be used.
The group of rhodamine dyes represent a numerous collection of laser dyes that have been widely used as an optically active part in hybrid inorganic/organic systems. On the other hand, cyanine dyes in such types of hybrid systems usually form so-called J-aggregates, which are of significant interest for organic materials conceived by supramolecular approaches. With the impact given on applied chemistry, oxygen sensing properties of hybrid systems can be studied using porphyrin dyes. The metalloporphyrin molecules with Pt- and Pd are suitable for the construction of perspective efficient oxygen sensors. These are known to be very useful for the sensing applications because of “heavy atom effect”. This effect promotes spin-orbit coupling, resulting in the fact that almost all of the radiation from singlet excited state undergoes the intersystem crossing, followed by the de-excitation via triplet state.
By changing the nitrogen-to-oxygen atmosphere and vice versa, one can study the behaviour of an “on-off” type sensing and eventually construct the highly-efficient oxygen sensor. There is no simple process to achieve the formation of dye supramolecular structures with ideal photochemical and photophysical properties. This step is a crucial problem to be solved during the technological process. This particular issue can be solved by the electrostatic interaction between colloidal particles of clay minerals, dye cations and organically-modified precursors and polyelectrolytes. In this case, the polymers, or fluorescent polymers will be used. Moreover, by using two or more types of dyes coexisting in the same inorganic matrix, intermolecular energy transfer can take place. To elucidation of the process of resonance energy transfer in above mentioned hybrid systems leads to a fluorescent nanocomposites with substantially longer lifetimes and strong fluorescent quantum yield of dye(s), as well as to an improvement of overall photostability.
The instutite is looking for partners to cooperate with via financial agreement (financing for the further development of this technology is sought), manufacturing agreement (manufacturing partner) or via services agreement (research capacities are offered).

Advantages and innovations

Hybrid nanomaterials with unique photochemical and photophysical properties exhibit some attractive features, such as excellent laser efficiency, photostability, fast photochromic response and stable non-linear optical response. The photoactive part of these hybrid systems consist of photofunctional organic dyes that exhibit interesting photophysical and photochemical properties. Incorporation of these dyes into inorganic solid matrices, such as surfaces of glass, quartz, silica pores silica gels, or zeolites, is of great technological interest for the design of photonic devices. The advantages of the proposal are due to the wide range of practical applications of prepared materials, such as solid lasers and various optical switches, memory storage media, materials of non-linear optical properties and photographic processes, as well as optical sensors of oxygen molecules, and photodynamic therapy. From the viewpoint of optical oxygen sensing studies, the qualitative determination of oxygen in a gas or liquid phase is of high importance in several fields, e.g. environmental monitoring, chemical and food industry, medical and biological applications and analytical chemistry. Moreover, the research of the energy transfer phenomenon is important in various processes or phenomena in industry, e.g. in a photoactivation, photochemical initialization, in catalysis, organic-type solar cells, etc. The knowledges gained from the research on the energy transfer among dye molecules can be highly contributive in understanding the interactions between the molecules of dyes in hybrid materials. Thus, reaching and controlling the effective energy transfer process can definitely serve as a perspective base for the materials utilised for manipulation and conversion of electromagnetic energy, molecular-level solar cells, selective senzibilization, and many others.

Development stage

Proposal under development

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

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